NORMAN MATLOFF'S IMMIGRATION FORUM

Subjects such as immigration are seldom treated in any depth in the press. Our aim here is to remedy this problem, by assembling a collection of articles on various aspects of immigration, written by specialists in the field.

The aim is to have a balanced, diverse set of viewpoints on this important topic. All articles here are posted by permission of the authors.

Select here if you are interested in a list of organizations and mailing lists that deal either mainly or partly in immigration matters.

Overview of articles: First, there are several broad categories of articles.

• Problems of welfare use by legal immigrants. Quite a bit of material here on this controversial topic.

• Negative impacts of immigration on minority groups. For example, there is an article by Jesse Laguna on the adverse economic impacts of immigration on Latino-Americans.

• Discrimination against (and by) immigrants.

• Several pieces on immigration and the family.

• Profiles of individual immigrants, to give a human face to all the statistics and policy analyses in the other articles presented here.

• Articles on policies regarding political asylum and refugees. For example, there is an essay here by Yeh Ling-Ling on claims of Chinese "boat people" for political asylum based on China's one-child population policy.

• Articles on illegal immigration. For example, there is an article here from Dissent on the economics of illegal immigration.

• Material on the economic impact of immigration. See also the PPIC report, "California's Rising Income Inequality: Causes and Concerns," which shows that large-scale immigration is causing a widening gap between the rich and poor, just as had been formerly predicted by economic theory. Another article of interest is Michael Lind's piece in Mother Jones magazine.

• Several pieces on whether or not immigrants assimilate into American culture.

• The role of immigrants in the U.S. computer industry, past and present.

A New York Times op-ed by two of the authors of the National Research Council report on immigration, who say their findings were misinterpreted by the press.

A RAND Corp. study on immigrant educational needs.

TJ Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, has an article, "Immigration: the View from Silicon Valley," outlining what he believes are weaknesses in arguments made by proponents of immigration reform.

Immigration-reform activist Yeh Ling-Ling's Los Angeles Times piece on general immigration issues: Yeh argues, on economic, social and environmental grounds, that the yearly quotas for immigration should be sharply reduced. In a later article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Yeh cites statements made by prominent immigrant advocates showing that immigration does bring on problems. Yeh's Chinese-immigrant status sometimes surprises reporters, who do not realize that many immigrants themselves have concerns about current immigration policy; she was the subject of a Scott Winokur column in the San Francisco Examiner in this regard. Yeh herself wrote a related article about immigrants who support her views.

A Web page of articles (some of which are on immigration) by Senator Spencer Abraham, who almost single-handedly turned the tide against immigration reform in Congress in 1996. Senator Abraham has become one of the leading proponents of high levels of immigration.

Then, Norman Matloff's Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, in which he submits that all three of the noble central tenets of our national immigration policy are being violated more often than adhered to. Also, Matloff's debunking of common myths about immigration; for a more nicely formatted version of that document suitable for printing, click here for the PDF version.

Ric Oberlink's Los Angeles Times article on the environmental case for immigration reduction.

A translation of a Chinese-language radio talk show in which Norman Matloff appeared as a guest. The host had warned him beforehand that he would receive a lot of hostile calls, but it turned out that the vast majority of the calls were supportive of immigration reform.

A book by pro-immigration author Julian Simon (most of the book is provided on-line).

Dr. Matloff's article on Dr. Raymond Luh, who was unfairly fired from his government job for reasons partly related to the fact that he was not a U.S. native.

Dr. Harry Pachon of the Tomas Rivera Center looks at the reasons behind the sudden surge of applications for naturalization by Mexican greencard holders.

In 1998, the Sierra Club held a referendum among its members on whether the organization should officially adopt a stance that high levels of immigration are harmful to the U.S. environment. An account of this was published by Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters, a syndicated commentator on California politics. Walters, normally reserved, accused the club officials who opposed the club's endorsing reduced levels of immigration as being hypocrites. By contrast, an article in an "alternative" Web publication titled, "The Greening of Hate," portrayed environmentalists who favor reduced immigration levels as using environmental concerns as a pretext for racist views on immigration.

Some results of public opinion polls on the immigration issue.

A look at immigration reform in Canada.

The INS Web page.

The Atlantic Monthly's immigration resource page.

Phil Martin's Migration News. This is a monthly newsletter, full of news on immigration, both to the U.S. and to other countries. You can browse through old issues by clicking here. Any issue contains information on how to receive monthly issues via e-mail.

Lots of immigration statistics, set up by Thomas Archdeacon of the History Department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Here is a fairly detailed overview of immigration law and policy.Also, here is the complete text of the Immigration and Nationality Act

If you are curious as to Dr. Matloff's background, please select here.

Click here to go up to Dr. Matloff's general menu on minority-related topics.

Click here for Dr. Matloff's most frequently accessed writings.

Though the authors and/or publishers have given me permission to place their articles here, this does not necessarily extend to copying rights for readers of this Web site. Presumably those rights are similar to those regarding photocopying at a library, but you should check with the authors and/or publishers to be sure. Note too that, for articles on other Web sites for which links are provided here, It is not known whether the maintainers of those other sites have secured permissions.